


figs and wonder

by ladynova



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M, but i'm glad it was this, this is officially the longest thing i have ever written in my life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 20:50:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4536852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladynova/pseuds/ladynova
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>four times robin reminds lon’qu of ke’ri, the moment the parallels end, and everything that follows thereafter. of love and loss, letting old wounds see the light, and learning to live again.</p><p>he could no longer look at robin and be reminded of his past with ke’ri. he would look at robin and envision a future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	figs and wonder

**Author's Note:**

> i can't remember how long i initially intended for this to be, but i'm 95% sure i wasn't planning for almost 9.5k words... i just have a lot of feelings for lon'qu as well as his relationship with robin; they really mean a lot to me, and i hope you enjoy! :-)

**01**.

Robin proved herself a strange character within the first days of Lon’qu having met her.

He wrinkled his nose at the sudden realization as he rushed forward, attempting to put distance between himself and the woman at his heels, figs ready in her hands that threw with such raw determination. No matter how he pumped his arms, though, she remained close behind, and he found himself lost in a haze of both annoyance and wonder at how she managed such a speed despite her strides being perhaps half as long as his own.

He turned a corner, dashing around the weapons tent in hopes of throwing Robin off, but as he nodded at Frederick, who was polishing the length of a silver lance, he found himself face-to-face with none other than the accursed tactician. Of the never-ending stash of figs she had started with, only two remained, one in each of her hands.

She grinned at him, aiming the first, but narrowly missing, and by the time the second fig hit the air, Lon’qu had drawn his sword. The purple fruit fell to the ground in the form of two near-perfect halves a moment later, the glint of his blade shining between them before he returned it to his side.

Robin stared at him, wide-eyed. “Amazing,” she breathed out. “Could you do that again?”

At the time, Lon’qu was not yet aware of how she would never fail to astonish him like so in the future.

 

* * *

 

That night, he dreamed he was a young boy in the slums again, still carving away a place for himself in the world, and the memories came with a wistful sense of nostalgia.

His unruly hair clouding his eyes, he sat with the slope of his back arched against a small, stone wall that separated the area he lived in from more privileged parts of town. He had nothing, save for the rough clothes against his skin and a battered sword of bronze, and some days he let himself close his eyes and imagine how it would feel to have _something_ , but doing so always left him feeling worse.

A loaf of bread seemingly fell from the clouds then, pulling Lon’qu from his thoughts. It dropped squarely in his lap, its form curving into his fingers, still warm in his hands, and he breathed in the wisps of smoke before tilting his head against the wall at his backside.

A young girl perched above him in a position that reminded him oddly of a frog, her face lit with a smile that showed teeth. Before Lon’qu could say a thing, she jumped from the wall and landed beside him, dusting off her green dress as she landed on her feet.

“Hi,” said the girl, brightly.

He looked over her without saying a word. She wore a dress of good condition, and her dark hair fell messily down her shoulders but was pulled back to frame a face that had never known scars, nor the feeling of dirt clinging to skin. The bread she had given him had probably been a part of the breakfast she had shared with her parents that morning, fresh from the oven and baked by her mother or father.

With the open, relaxed way she stood, she probably was not at the level of Chon’sin’s crown prince, Yen’fay, but all the same, Lon’qu felt a pang of jealousy that he immediately hated himself for.

“Hey,” he said, willing it away.

The girl plopped down in front of him, still smiling. “I’m Ke’ri,” she told him.

It was a name Lon’qu would never forget.

 

* * *

 

 **02**.

He could feel Robin’s eyes boring into the back of his skull as he swung his sword under the earliest lights of the next morning. Sighing in disbelief, he scowled, tightened his grip on the hilt of his killing edge, and then stepped back before lashing out against the training dummy in front of him, blade slicing cleanly through its throat. The dummy’s head hit the floor, falling emptily to the ground, and Lon’qu cast a glance over his shoulder, wondering if he had provoked a response from the tactician or scared her away.

Neither, it seemed. The training grounds appeared to be as abandoned as they had been before the sun had woken, which was when Lon’qu had picked up his blade for the first time that day, but he could still sense her presence burning behind him.

He rolled his shoulders back, shrugged to himself, and leaned over to pick up the dummy’s head.

There then came a soft cackle from behind him, and he heard a figure jump out from behind a stand of newly polished shields, the image of a fig held in a hand mentally coming into focus. Without even turning around, Lon’qu estimated the time the fig was released into the air, taking into consideration the angle the projectile would come from, and nestled the dummy head in his arm to take a step to the left and stick out his right hand beside him—

“Rgh—!”

Robin’s voice filled the area as Lon’qu caught the fig whose trajectory she had so methodically calculated with assorted algorithms written out in her head.

“You,” Robin proclaimed, her voice bitingly sharp, “are _infuriating_.”

Lon’qu regarded the outstretched, accusing index finger she held in his direction with the most unimpressed of gazes that only made Robin’s frown deepen. He deadpanned, “I could say the same to you.”

Yet when Robin crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against a shelf of various elixirs and medicinal supplies, Lon’qu found the knife he usually kept at his belt in his grip instead, easily slicing the fruit into two as he had done the day before. He tossed a half back at the scowling woman, whose hands caught it before her gaze did.

She studied him closely, and Lon’qu could see the wonder shining in her eyes once again.

But she said nothing besides the few syllables of: “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

Ke’ri found him again the next day dozing under the shade of the wall that separated them, assorted fruits and baked goods spilling from her arms as she jumped the boundary. She dumped the various items into Lon’qu’s lap, and he woke abruptly, squinting up at her.

“Ngh…what?”

Ke’ri crossed her legs and grinned. “Food in exchange for friendship!” she said simply. She pointed a thumb at herself, square in the chest, before directing it at the boy in front of her. “You don’t look like you get much to eat, but I can fix that. In exchange, you and I should be friends!”

Lon’qu rubbed at his eyes, the last fragments of sleep leaving him. “But why?”

“I think you and I would be great friends, and isn’t that good enough of a reason?” Ke’ri’s smile had not faded in the least, and there was no denying the sincerity of her tone.

Lon’qu watched as she plucked a green pear from the floor, wiping it against the fabric of the forget-me-not blue dress she wore today. She took a bite, looking as though she had not a care in the world. “You and I are very different,” Lon’qu told her.

“That’s perfectly fine,” Ke’ri said, shrugging. “I don’t mind.”

There was a certain comfort that came with her words—Lon’qu hadn’t had a friend of his own for as long as he could remember, as he had always preferred to keep to himself. He dipped his head slightly. “Alright,” he said eventually. “Let’s be friends.”

He reached for a red apple, and she beamed as he took a bite.

 

* * *

 

 **03**.

Once Robin came to be satisfied with the extent of her fruit-pelting abilities, she set out to conquer another challenge involving her capability to provoke some form of laughter from the swordsman. By then, Lon’qu had learned that simply going along with her antics would tend to be his best bet, but some days, he would be proved otherwise.

Such as today, when Robin’s blade came to clash against his own during yet another session of sparring, her movements more fluid and precise than they had ever been. But despite how immersed her focus may have seemed to an outsider, Lon’qu could see the mischievous plans pooling in her eyes.

Her movements generally followed a trend: she would evade a blow from his sword, sidestep him and rush forward to invade his immediate vicinity, which would distract him long enough for her to jab him in the side in search of a place he was ticklish, or perhaps adopt a comical expression in attempt to make him laugh.

Robin’s actions rendered Lon’qu confused and irritated, and Robin, too, seemed to be nearing the breaking point of her patience as she had yet to elicit as much as a chuckle from him during nearly two hours of sparring. Her pokes to his ribs grew sharper, and Lon’qu found himself sheathing his sword to catch her fists before she could reach him, wondering if she wanted to train in hand-to-hand combat instead.

“What the hell,” he hissed, feeling her fists clench in his hands as she put away her own sword, “do you think you’re doing?”

Robin wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue, shrugging. “Trying to make you laugh, currently,” she said.

There was a certain fire to her eyes as she spoke, and Lon’qu shook his head at her never-ending determination. “…Heh, you’ll never manage.”

With Lon’qu’s grip encasing Robin’s fists, she had been trying to drive him backward from his hands, but she stopped in her tracks at the sound of his words, slowly tilting her chin upward to stare at him with large eyes.

Lon’qu winced, pushing forward so they wouldn’t overbalance. “What?”

“You _laughed_.”

“What?” he said again. “I did not.”

Robin forced her hands from his and quickly jabbed him in the stomach. “I heard you,” she said. “You must really like me now, too—you’re not even sweating from standing this close, and we were essentially just holding hands!”

Lon’qu sighed in exasperation, but he couldn’t deny that they had grown closer in Robin’s attempts to pelt him with fruit, make him smile and laugh. They had shared quite a few conversations and days together between these attempts, and he had learned much of the Shepherds’ tactician, as she had with him.

He glanced down to see her studying him again, calculating who-knows-what.

“Con artist,” he murmured, bringing forward a hand to push back her head so she would miss the small smile that would come alight on his face.

But Robin was Robin, and he should have known her sharp eyes could never miss a thing. She gasped as she saw the curve of his lips and grinned up at him, crossing her arms in victory.

“You know, Lon’qu,” she said, “smiling suits you.”

 

* * *

 

“You don’t smile much, do you?” Ke’ri asked one morning, almost out of breath as she attempted to keep up with his broad strides as they walked around the village.

Lon’qu glanced at her, taking notice of how the wind rustled her hair and made her long skirt billow in its breeze. Her cheeks were rosy and lips perpetually curved upward, and he thought to himself that he had been right in pointing out to her how different they were. He wondered if she could see it now.

Lon’qu exhaled slowly and shrugged. “I guess not.”

Ke’ri fell quiet at his words, seeming to lose herself in thought for the briefest of moments, but she soon returned, rushing forward with excited steps as she laced fingers with the hand Lon’qu didn’t have on the hilt of his blade. She smiled at him, pulling him forward, and they settled into a slow jog.

“I’ll change that,” Ke’ri said, and she spoke like it was law. “I’ll change that, Lon’qu. I’ll make you smile every day—just wait.”

As she steered him into a meadow off the dirt path they had been following, Lon’qu realized he had begun to see the world in color upon meeting her. He noticed the soft striped print of her skirt, the flowers dotting the ground at their feet, the occasional dragonfly riding the wind.

For a while, he no longer took notice of the tears in his clothes, the dirt stuck to his skin, nor the slowly healing cuts and bruises trailing up his arms and legs. He only felt the wind on his face, the sun filtering down on the both of them, and his hand in hers.

There came a small smile on his lips, but Ke’ri had her eyes set ahead, and it escaped her attention.

 

* * *

 

 **04**.

Robin came crashing through Lon’qu’s tent flap in the dead of the night, just as he was drifting in and out of sleep. He jolted up in bed at the sound of her entrance, rubbing at his eyes, a scowl already claiming his features as the sight of the white-haired woman came into focus.

“Robin,” he sighed in exasperation, “if you’re going to throw your damned figs at me again—”

His mouth quirked to the side as Robin’s laughter cut him off and she attempted to wave his words away the best she could with her hands cupped together in front of her. “I’m not, I’m not!”

Lon’qu sat up slowly and swung his legs over the side of his cot, meeting her eyes after a brief moment of hesitation. Her smile only widened when he looked at her, and he felt the corners of his lips lifting the slightest bit despite her having interrupted his slumber the second time that month.

(He had to admit to himself that she had grown on him, her oddities and all.)

He cleared his throat. “Well, then. What brings you here?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” said Robin, finally opening her hands and letting a trio of fireflies soar out from her palms and into the dimness of Lon’qu’s tent. They watched together as the illuminated insects danced over their heads, circling each other in the dark, and Robin halved their distance until she was seated on the floor by his cot, arms curled around her legs as she followed his gaze to the fireflies. “You like bugs, don’t you?”

Lon’qu paused, glancing down at her. “How’d you know?”

Robin laughed quietly. “You think no one ever notices you playing with beetles and the like,” she said, poking her index finger to his knee just beside her. “But I do.”

Lon’qu felt his face warming as the distance between them only decreased, and maybe it was the drowsiness still weighing him down, but he couldn’t find it in himself to pull away from the woman smiling up at him from the floor. He exhaled, leaning forward and extending a hand to the crown of her head, letting his palm linger atop her starbright hair.

He swallowed a laugh as her shoulders jerked in surprise, but he watched in dismay as she returned the favor, reaching up and placing her own hand on top of his, leaning backward to look up at him. Lon’qu held his breath, blood rushing to his face as he felt her fingers over his, her skin soft and warm.

Robin only smiled, seeming not to notice his flustered reaction. “Hey,” she said, drawing out the syllable.

Lon’qu bit the inside of his cheek. “Y-yes?”

“Is it okay if I stay a while?”

Lon’qu let out a breath, pulling his hand out from under hers to deliver a swift, half-joking chopping motion to her head, which made her jump again.

“…Only for a little bit.”

 

* * *

 

Some days Ke’ri talked for hours on end, and although Lon’qu had always been a person of silence, he realized that he had never enjoyed anything as much her presence, the slight weight of her shoulder against his arm, the way she smiled up at him. She had taken the weight of the world from him somehow, and Lon’qu wondered how she did it, she with her thin frame, knobby knees, and too-bright smile.

(When he became aware of the way his heartbeat constantly spiked when he saw her, somewhere in the corner of his mind, he began to put the pieces together.)

One morning he met her at their favorite portion of the meadow, and they sat in the shade of a blossoming apple tree whose branches extended for several meters in each direction, so they could be shrouded in shadows even with their legs stretched out in front of them. The light that filtered down between the gaps of leaves overhead caught in the waves of Ke’ri’s hair, and Lon’qu found himself gravitating toward her, reaching forward to tuck a stray portion behind her right ear.

His hand lingered there for a few beats, and Ke’ri’s words came to a slow as she turned her head toward him, her fingers lifting to graze his. Lon’qu felt his heart pounding in his chest, pulled back, and crinkled his nose at Ke’ri’s light laughter.

“You’re so cute,” she giggled from behind her hands.

He stuck out his tongue, and her laughs filled the air.

It felt as though not even an hour had passed by the time the vibrantly colored butterflies that sometimes circled their heads turned to cicadas and fireflies beneath the constellations that lit the sky. Ke’ri hugged her knees to her chest and sighed, angling her face toward him. “I wish,” she said, with a heave of her chest, “I wish we could be like this forever.”

Lon’qu felt his face warming and glanced away. “This isn’t some…fairy tale or something, you know…”

He could hear the smile in her voice when she spoke. “But it _feels_ like it! You’re something like a sort of knight in shining armor to me.”

“…Ha, I am not.”

Ke’ri pouted. “You’d save me, though, if it came to it, right?” she asked.

“Well, of course,” Lon’qu said, nodding briefly, and Ke’ri smiled at his words, seeming content.

Much later, as he caught sight of the waning crescent moon making its entrance from behind the clouds above them, Ke’ri leaned over, brushing her lips against his cheekbone before quickly rushing away, words tumbling out in a hurry— _I need to be home for dinner, good night, see you tomorrow._

He almost thought he heard ‘I love you’ but he couldn’t be quite sure.

 

* * *

 

 **05**.

Frederick’s most recent Fanatical Fitness Hour had Robin sprawled out upon tufts of grass, hands half-heartedly lifted above her face to shield herself from the rays of the sun relentlessly beating down on her, even in her exhaustion. The training grounds were empty, as the rest of the Shepherds had scampered off to rest (or collapse, in some cases) in their respective tents or the mess hall, or perhaps complain among one another about the knight’s rigorous fitness procedures.

Only Lon’qu remained, with the exception of Frederick scolding Henry and Tharja for skipping out on the day’s session somewhere in the distance, and Robin let out a sound of relief as the swordsman stood over her, his shadow blocking her from the sun. Peeking out from her fingers, she winced, noticing how he had not broken much of a sweat and was barely breathing any faster than he usually did, despite today’s Hour having been much more physically demanding than previous sessions.

Her chest heaved once, and as she pulled herself into a sitting position, Lon’qu took a seat in front of her, shoulders curving forward. “Hey, don’t die on me now,” he said.

Robin snorted but bit back a rebuttal that involved informing him that not everyone possessed his level of stamina when she noticed how Lon’qu nursed his hands in his lap, almost seeming to want to hide them from her instead of having them firmly planted on the ground beside him. She inclined forward, studying them. “Speak for yourself,” she said. “Show me your hands.”

Reluctantly, he extended his arms in her direction, palms facing upward, and a frown clouded Robin’s features, marking her face with concern as her gaze ran over the redness of his hands, the bruises and blisters running across the map of his skin. She reached into a deep pocket of her tactician cloak and fished out a roll of bandages, scooting forward and pulling Lon’qu’s fingers to hers.

He jerked back as her hands grazed his, face warming, and she blinked up at him once, twice. “I’m no Lissa, but I know the basics.” Her mouth quirked to the side. “Tactics aren’t all I do, you know.”

Lon’qu slowly exhaled through his nose, pursed his lips to prevent a smile, and let the multi-talented woman set to work. “Tactics, swordplay, magic… Is there anything you don’t do?” he asked.

Robin laughed, deftly wrapping his hands in the bandages as she paused and pretended to think. “Well, I haven’t gotten around to saving the world just yet,” she told him. “I’m still working on that one.”

 _But you will, someday_ , Lon’qu thought to himself. It occurred to him that if anyone were to save the world, he could only see it being her, and he had no doubts in her capabilities to make her goals reality.

Robin smiled up at him, almost as though she had read his mind, and he figured it wouldn’t be at all surprising if she were able to do so as well. Lon’qu noticed she had finished bandaging his hands, but they were still in hers, as if she didn’t want to let go just yet. And then all of a sudden, her smile turned uncharacteristically soft and shy, and she was leaning toward him, and his heart and mind were both overwhelmingly loud in his ears— _too close too close too close_ —

He wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to pull away or close the distance, but he was overly aware of the lights in her eyes and the rosy flush of her cheeks…and how pretty she looked in the sun. His heart was pounding all too fast, and he had but a second to wonder if she could hear it, too.

Her lips were perhaps two inches from his when Lon’qu finally withdrew his hands from hers in a single acute movement and leaned backward all at once, separating them with distance once again, and the distance turned to a chasm between them that he had had no intent of creating. Panic surging through him, his heart dropped when his eyes darted to her face and he could see that the lights in hers had extinguished.

She was pulling away now, and Lon’qu was frantically trying to reclaim whatever pieces of her he could. Hands trembling, he wanted to reach for her, but all he could do was bite out: “Robin, I—I’m sorry…”

He wasn’t sure how she’d react, but he hadn’t been anticipating the small smile she gave him, the crinkling of her eyes, the composure she had regained much too quickly to seem real. “Don’t be,” Robin said, her voice painfully quiet and understanding, “it’s alright, Lon’qu.”

But as she quickly turned on her heel and left him in the sun, he knew with every fiber of his being that it _wasn’t_. In the moment he had seen her expression, he had glimpsed the muted pain to her features and felt his chest tear into two.

Pressing his palms against the bones of his face, Lon’qu faintly recalled a similar situation that had taken place years and years ago, with his first love, and he remembered the brokenness and disappointment that had bled from her face and the tears that spilled down her cheeks as she bolted from him, hair streaming behind her. But as he buried his head in his hands, he realized that Robin’s seemingly calm reaction and the light gone from her eyes had managed to pain him in a way his childhood blunders with Ke’ri never had.

Robin was a strong woman, but he had hurt her in a way that differed from Ke’ri, and he found that he could no longer even subconsciously compare the two any longer. The feelings he had once harbored for Ke’ri were far different in color than those he now held for Robin, and the parallels between his relationships with them ended that day.

He no longer could look at Robin and be reminded of his past with Ke’ri.

He would look at Robin and envision a future.

 

* * *

 

 **06**.

The lapse of peacetime the Shepherds reveled in was short-lived, and swarms of Risen arose with the chasm that only seemed to deepen between Lon’qu and Robin as the days progressed. Lon’qu couldn’t find it in himself to wait by her tent in the mornings, as she couldn’t bring herself to join him for breakfast, as they had come to do for weeks and weeks until Robin had taken his reaction as an unspoken rejection.

The woman was mature and wise beyond her years, so she held nothing against him, but on the rare occasion that she granted him fleeting glances, the curve of her lips seemed misplaced and false, the colors of her eyes dimmer than he remembered. Lon’qu grew angrier at himself as time ticked by without him; since they had grown closer as comrades and friends, he had been able to suppress his phobia around Robin, so why had it chosen then of all times to come crashing back to him?

While he had never been one to carry his emotions onto the battlefield, Lon’qu felt his self-loathing clouding his focus as he swung his blade through the Risen that seemed to materialize out of thin air. He suffered a few blows from the undead soldiers when on usual days he almost always evaded their attacks, but the pain escaped his attention as he gripped his sword until his knuckles whitened and retaliated with twice the strength.

In the distance, he glimpsed Robin with her Thoron tome at the ready, right hand extended in front of her as she recited the incantation that enabled her to strike her enemies down with practiced ease. He watched as the Risen fell to the ground beneath her feet, feeling a slight ache in his chest when he realized that she did not quite need him by her side, but the pain soon turned to panic and horror as more Risen only seemed to flock to the tactician as she rushed to finish them off.

Lon’qu clenched his jaw upon remembering he had seen this before, enemies surrounding a girl at the center, outnumbering her by far too many to be deemed fair. He had seen his many, many times in his worst nightmares, and he was well aware of how it ended—

Before he knew it, he was surging toward her, his entire body burning as if on fire, and he swung at the Risen as though his life depended on it, and perhaps it did.

He was so numb that he barely felt his blows connect but kept slicing, tearing through flesh, and he swore to himself in that moment that he would do everything in his power to save her this time around. With these thoughts, he grew blind, his vision darkening at the edges, and he eventually realized his blade was only separating air.

He heard Robin’s voice soaring through her incantations and the familiar rumbling of thunder as lightning sparked at her fingertips. The Risen fell with hollow thuds to the ground, skin charred by her magic, and turned to dust before dissipating into the very air Lon’qu was struggling to breathe.

As the last Risen disappeared, Robin glanced up at Lon’qu, eyebrows knitting together in confusion as if she were trying to piece together the reason for his sudden recklessness. She took note of how his hand on his sword was clasped far too tightly, how his chest heaved in staggered intervals, how his irises spun fire.

She took a careful step toward him, teetering on the edge of the gorge that separated them. “Lon’qu?” she asked, and he wondered how long it had been since he had last heard her say his name. “Are you alright?”

She was answered by silence, as Lon’qu was lost in thought.

The memory of love and loss that plagued him almost every night did not end this way.

This was Robin, and she did not need him to save her.

 

* * *

 

 **07**.

Robin slipped into the medical tent just as Lissa finished patching up Lon’qu on one of the many cots. The princess beamed upon her entrance and welcomed her in, quickly ushering her to Lon’qu’s station before Robin had time to even breathe a word, but she couldn’t help but smile at the younger girl’s high spirits regardless of the weight of the war.

“How’s he doing, doc?” Robin asked, nudging Lissa.

She gave her a bright smile. “He should be ready to go in any minute, and my only request is that he take it easy for the next few days,” Lissa said, straightening her back and saluting Robin. “I leave him to you!”

Giggling, Lissa waved her fingers and dashed out the flap of the tent, leaving Robin alone with Lon’qu, as her other patients had already been treated and permitted to depart. Lon’qu kept his head bowed, scowling at his various bandages and avoiding her eyes, and despite everything, Robin couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him fidgeting.

She stepped forward and as eloquently as possible said, “Hello, Lon’qu.”

He coughed, squirmed a little, eventually tilted his head to meet her gaze. “Hi.”

“Thank you for earlier.”

Lon’qu’s features contorted at Robin’s words, his brows arching upward. “What do you mean?”

A painful look crossed Robin’s face as she gestured to the various wounds he had acquired from their most recent battle against the Risen. “You really helped me out back there,” she explained, her voice softening. “I can hold my own, but I appreciate you having my back. And…you looked like something was troubling you, so I wanted to check if you were alright.”

“Think nothing of it,” said Lon’qu, shaking his head. He paused for a beat before repeating himself, “Think nothing of it.”

Robin offered him a sort of grimace-smile before sifting through the pile of assorted medicinal supplies Lissa had left on the cot beside him until she found a small bandage, carefully tearing off its wrapper. “Hold still for a minute.”

Lon’qu froze in place as Robin pressed the bandage to a thin cut at his cheekbone that Lissa had left unattended, and Robin quickly drew back as she noticed the sudden redness to his face, as if afraid that her skin had burned him. “S-sorry,” she mumbled. “I guess I haven’t been doing as good of a job at driving away your gynophobia as I had been before, um…that happened. I really am sorry.”

“Annoying woman,” Lon’qu hissed, his face in his hands. “I should be the one apologizing to you.”

Robin stilled, rubbing at her neck. “Ah, no, that was all my fault. I got carried away; I thought we had seen the last of your phobia for good, and I just—”

“I think you misread my reaction,” Lon’qu said, wincing at the difficulty of verbalizing the words. When he looked up, though, he saw that some of the light had begun to spark in Robin’s eyes once again, and it gave him more than enough strength to continue. “I don’t…I don’t dislike you, or anything, Robin.”

The tactician lifted the back of her hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh that warmed Lon’qu to the bone. “I’m glad. And I don’t dislike you either.”

Weight lifted from his shoulders, and he felt the chasm between them filling with sediment until it was safe enough to cross again. “Robin, while we’re at it, I… In our recent battle, did you…do something to me? Cast a spell? Slip me a potion?” The words tumbled out in a rush.

Robin shook her head, white hair fanning around her. “No, of course not… Why do you ask?”

He pressed his lips together and gave her a small smile unlike any of the others he had ever shown her, the blood once again rushing to his cheeks. “I see…” he murmured. “Then this feeling in my heart is from natural causes.”

Moments later, Lon’qu had crossed the area where the chasm between them had once cut through the earth, Robin was in his arms, a gold ring on her finger, and over the sound of his thoughts filling him whole, she was the breath of silence that he needed to realize that she was everything that was home.

 

* * *

 

 **08**.

Robin used her new ring as an excuse for needing to move into Lon’qu’s tent, and surprisingly, he let her. One morning, he helped her lug all of her books—he asked her to bring only her favorites, but it turned out she deeply loved them all—to his living space, and a tower of tomes and novels found itself next to Lon’qu’s swords and bug collection, (the latter of which he had attempted to hide from her but failed).

When night came, she managed to secure herself a permanent spot by his side on his cot, which they shared together despite having moved her cot just beside it, but truth be told, not much sleeping happened between them—Robin liked to read late into the ungodly hours of nighttime, and Lon’qu more often than not trained until there were stars in the sky. When he finally did retire for the night, though, he generally altered between watching his wife read and pretending to study the mosquito netting above them on the occasion that she tore her eyes from her book long enough to catch him staring.

They often talked well into the late hours as well, and one night, when a certain nightmare came to visit Lon’qu after a while of him not having woken up in cold sweat, Robin helped calm him and he decided to tell her everything. His childhood as an orphan in the slums, how he kept himself alive, his story of Ke’ri, the aftermath—he bore it all to her, and she listened, breathing in his words.

When he quieted, they sat in silence for an eternity, until Robin’s arms made their way around his torso, her ear centered at his chest, where his heart was soundly beating. “You’re still here, despite it all,” she told him, tapping a forefinger to his heartbeat as if to remind him it was there. “I hope you know how strong you are.”

Lon’qu felt her filling his old wounds with light and pulled her close, wondering if she was aware of how much strength he had gained because of her, how much strength everyone had gained because of her.

“I could say the same to you.”

 

* * *

 

 **09**.

Their first meeting of Morgan served as another lapse of peacetime at the heart of the war, when Chrom and the Shepherds stumbled upon ruins carrying the legacy of the divine dragon before setting off to Plegia to secure the last gemstone. As she surveyed the area in her usual methodical sweep, Robin glimpsed a young, dark-haired myrmidon boy amidst the Risen that swarmed the place and quickly pointed him out to her husband. When he saw the boy, Lon’qu couldn’t help but feel as though he was looking at himself in the mirror, a decade ago, save for the young myrmidon’s expression, which reminded him largely of a certain someone else…

After a nod of approval from Chrom, Robin and Lon’qu set out to investigate the boy, who immediately came running at the sight of Robin in her tactician cloak, an enthusiastic smile coming alive on his features.

“You sure don’t look like a treasure hunter,” said Robin, voice carrying over the sounds of the initiated battle already looming around them. “What brings you here?”

The boy’s grin only widened. “There you are, Mother!” he exclaimed, rushing toward her. “I was beginning to think we got separated!”

He noticed Lon’qu beside her then, eyes running over their similar attire and seemingly identical blades in their right hands. “F-Father? Is that you?” For a moment, the boy’s smile almost looked unsure, as though he still had yet to put the pieces together, but there was no denying their resemblance. “I…I wonder why I have no memory of you... All my memories of Mother are so crisp and clear...”

 _We had a son_ , thought Lon’qu, heart panging, eyes widening. He looked to Robin, the softest of smiles curving his lips despite his obvious shock, and Robin’s eyes shot between her husband to son in turn.

The myrmidon boy chuckled nervously and lifted his free hand to wave at them. “Why are you looking at me like that? Hello? It's me, Morgan! ...Your son? Love of your life and strapping young lad and all that?”

 _Morgan_ , thought Robin, mimicking Lon’qu’s smile, _our son from the future_. She extended a hand to the boy, and he spun them his tale, which while surprising, wasn’t completely impossible to comprehend, as they had already met some of the troops’ future children.

While Morgan was his mother through and through in mind, outlook, and personality, when the newly reunited trio took to the battlefield together, Lon’qu realized that the boy’s movements and swordplay bore an undeniable resemblance to his own, as though in another life, he had trained him himself. Lon’qu watched as his son struck down a Risen thief with inexplicable power and felt his chest swell with pride as he recognized Morgan’s swordsmanship and footwork as his. His dark, tussled locks, while admittedly quite neater than Lon’qu’s, had most definitely been inherited from him as well.

Eager to showcase his skills to his parents, Morgan sprinted forward to take down another enemy, and they let him, already aware and trusting of his caliber as a soldier and merely staying behind him for support. Robin hugged her tome to her chest and grinned at her husband as they watched him pierce through another thief.

“Say what he will about wanting to be a tactician like me,” she said brightly, “but our son takes after you.”

It was a feeling like no other.

They ate their first dinner as a family that night, in the mess hall. Lively as ever, Morgan colored the spaces of silence that usually filled the majority of the couple’s dinner with his brightness and energy, and they found themselves welcoming the change.

The sun had been descending from its throne, bathing the area in warm, orange light as Morgan finished his food and was prodded in the shoulder by the sheathed sword of Owain, assuming his usual position, covering the majority of his face with his fingers. “This day’s majestic sunset casts its light upon a truly unfamiliar face!” Owain exclaimed, and once Morgan composed himself after having jumped in surprise, he beamed, eyes shining. “I welcome thee with prodigal anticipation, my new ally!”

“Ah…hello!” Morgan said, and Robin smiled at the thought of her son having inherited some shyness from his father. After examining Owain’s similar garb, the only difference being their respective colors, Morgan tilted over to peek behind the older boy, glimpsing the blue-haired princess sitting a table away, holding a conversation with a bubbly girl in pigtails.

Owain cupped a hand to his mouth. “Lucina, Cynthia!” he called. “The new soldier seeks you!”

Cynthia bounced up, waving her arm over her head in greeting, followed by a startled Lucina, who lifted a hand three seconds too late.

Morgan turned to his parents excitedly. “Mother, Father, may I…?”

Robin nodded, smiling. “Of course! Go on ahead.”

She and Lon’qu watched as Morgan chased Owain back to his table and took a seat across from the princess.

“Robin,” said Lon’qu, minutes later.

“Hm?”

“…Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

 **10**.

When the time came, Lon’qu never asked Robin to stay, to not sacrifice herself, to not save the world. It pained him more than any of the Shepherds knowing that she had already made her decision regarding whether or not she would make the final strike against Grima and give up her life so that the rest of the world could have theirs, and they spoke little of it, though late at night she would often wake with the echoes of screams on her tongue. She would merely find her way into his arms, and he would hold her.

She hadn’t said a thing of what was to come, but words sometimes slipped her lips in the form of ragged breaths, and she would tell him, arms encircled around his form, hands clenched at the cotton of his shirt, face pressed to his chest—she would tell him, over and over again, that she loved him and that she was sorry and that she _loved him_.

He could never do anything but grasp her securely, with all his strength, as if holding on to her tight enough would keep her from escaping from the spaces between his fingers. He had the highest trust and faith in her, but there was no denying he was afraid, terrified beyond belief of what would happen to his wife in the days that would inevitably come, and he hoped for a moment that she would feel the stunted rhythm of his heart and realize how scared he was and decide not to be the one to save the world.

But he had even said so to himself—he could see it being no one but her.

When the time came, Lon’qu found his shouts filling the air, despite inhibition, despite not wanting to make it any more difficult for Robin, despite having never told her to stay. One second she was at his side as she always was, supporting and defending him as she always did, and the next he had lost her in the haze of battle, a last whispered ‘I love you’ being all he had left of his wife.

He broke into a run, swinging his sword left and right as he tore through the Risen that blocked his path. His eyes were burning, lungs screaming, but he bolted forward, tearing through enemies and allies alike, pushing past the gales of wind that tried to force him away from the woman escaping his hold.

“Robin!” he yelled, willing his voice to her back as she calmly strode on, evading the Risen that came to greet her with sparks and metal. “Robin! _Robin!_ ” Her name became a mantra etched onto his tongue.

He watched in dismay as her left hand reached back to pull her hood over her starbright hair, veiling her determined features in shadow. He had caught a glimpse of her face, her expression set in stone, and he knew then, as he had the entire time, that there was nothing he could do to stop her.

But that didn’t discourage him from chasing her waning form as though his very life depended on it, and maybe it did.

He realized then that he never had told her outright that he loved her.

He felt his chest clench and eyes prick, and he was running faster than he had been before, Risen materializing and being slashed down by his blade at a speed even he could barely comprehend.

He was at the nape of the fell dragon’s neck by the time Robin reached Grima’s crown, the wind whipping through her hair and freeing her pale locks from her hood. Even from his distance away, Lon’qu could see the wicked sneer that came alive on the face of the woman who looked so uncannily like his wife but was anything but her. The two circled each other, already whispering incantations beneath their breaths, and Lon’qu caught a last glimpse of Robin’s face as her front turned to him.

An inferno burst from the palm of her hand, alive and roaring, and its colors washed upon the shapes of her face, bathing her in all hues of crimson. The fire danced in her narrowed eyes as the flames leapt forward, engulfing Robin’s clone in an embrace of inextinguishable fire, and even from such a distance away, Lon’qu could hear Grima’s screams lifting into the air.

Robin had never looked so, so terrifyingly beautiful.

Grima let out another screech as the flames ate her whole, burning her down to the bone, but as she fell, flames of a deep violet rose from their feet and swallowed the both of them.

Even as she disappeared, she still had the same fire in her eyes, and Lon’qu would never forget the expression on her face as she was scattered into the wind.

For a year, he lived out the majority his days in silence.

He ceased correspondence with his old comrades and returned to the bitter, unforgiving cold of Ferox, where the winds seemed to bite his skin just to spite him, just to remind him that he no longer had Robin’s flame to keep him warm. Even his son was no longer there to provide heat for them to share, as he had hugged his father goodbye and left on a journey with the other children. Though he had promised he would return to visit him, Lon’qu barely saw much of his son, as if Morgan knew how much it pained his father to see him, as he reminded him of Robin with his every breath and smile.

He settled into a painfully linear schedule beginning from his first night back in Ferox. He would wake early in the mornings, sometimes with bruises purpling his skin from having thrown punches into his chamber’s stone walls, and he would descend the staircase leading out of the castle, ignoring the looks and whispers from the maids as they watched him pass with sad, watery eyes he would never care enough to meet.

He would ignore Flavia’s attempts at starting conversations and her good-natured punches to his forearm.

He would ignore Basilio’s jokes and jests as he attempted to make his champion smile again.

He would ignore the way emptiness filled him in a way he never thought was possible.

And he would train. He swung his sword through the entirety of most days, until his muscles screamed and hands could no longer properly wield his blade. Yet regardless of how much he practiced, he found himself growing less precise, less powerful, less of himself each time the hilt of his sword met his palm.

Lon’qu followed this schedule for days, weeks, months until he could no longer recognize the strikes he made against his various training dummies. His movements came to a slow, and then finally a halt, and he took a deep breath.

As much as he needed Robin, he told himself that he did not need her to save him this time around.

He inhaled again, welcoming cool air through his nose. He adjusted his grip on his sword, strengthened his stance. His enemy came clear into focus, and once he lashed forward, the training dummy’s head fell to the floor, a much cleaner cut sliced across its neck.

He slowly learned to forgive himself. Just as he did not need her to save him, he knew that the case was the same for Robin; she would find him again someday, and he allowed himself to hope that it would be someday soon.

His body grew warm, and he noticed he held flames in his hands, the cold suddenly seeming far away. Slowly but surely, Lon’qu brought his calloused hands together and relearned how to make fires for himself again, and as the days passed, he readjusted to the way the Ferox air stung his skin and welcomed the feeling.

With new fire at his disposal, Lon’qu retrained himself up to par with his previous state, focusing on gaining back the strength he had lost in his mourning. As days progressed into weeks, he felt it all coming back to him: the exhilaration that came with swinging a sword at full force, how he moved his feet to lunge and parry, how his muscles moved beneath his skin.

Gradually, he began to respond to Flavia’s greetings and sometimes even smiled as her knuckles would just barely skim his arm as he stepped out of the way, pointing out that she would have to move faster than that to hit him.

He managed half-laughs behind the back of his hand as Basilio’s jokes only grew tackier by the day, and the West-Khan was finally able to relax upon seeing him smile.

He even greeted the maids good morning every now and then and came to be on speaking terms with some of them.

The emptiness that had consumed him eventually came to be filled, though the area at his chest remained vacant even as the seasons changed, as it was the place where Robin belonged and would occupy when she returned.

By the time it had been a year since her disappearance, Lon’qu had learned to live again, but every day he still prayed for her homecoming—and by the turn of spring, the universe finally granted him his wish.

Spring came to soothe the cold that had settled into his skin from the most recent winter, and the sky was a soft blue above him just as the air he swung his sharpened killing edge through was pleasantly warm to the touch. Lon’qu had woken early, as usual, but the sun was high over his head, comfortably perched on its throne and sending rays of white light spiraling down to the swordsman making his way through his preferred morning routines.

The sound of his blade slicing the air with precision that had long since gone unrivaled was comforting to his ears; it was a sharp sound, a sure sound, a telltale sign that his endless hours of practice had not been spent in vain. Lon’qu soon found himself nearing the edge of the castle’s training grounds and let his quick footwork come to a slow as he approached the area where tall oak trees sprouted from the ground, providing some means of shade for him to retreat under when the sun’s heat proved to be too much.

He swiveled from his torso, directing a sharp cut through the body of an invisible foe hovering above him, but just as he imagined his sword piercing flesh, he felt a small, circular object collide with his shoulder, as if it had been thrown right at him. A fruit of some sort, he thought at once. The sensation was strangely familiar, and all of a sudden, his heart was racing without his knowing why.

Lon’qu glanced down, studying the projectile, a purple, almost pear-shaped fruit he had seen all too much: a fig.

 _That could only mean_ —

His eyes tore through his vicinity, left and right, searching desperately for whatever traces of _her_ he could possibly take hold of, but she was nowhere to be seen, and the realization settled heavily against his aching chest.

He stabbed his sword into the earth, hand clenched at its hilt as it impaled the ground, and after letting go, he looked up to glimpse a flash of a duo of figs soaring in his direction before they hit his forehead and chest in turn. Scowling, Lon’qu brushed his fingers at the area between his brows before glancing around once again.

Leaving his sword still speared into the ground, he picked up the three figs and veered toward the oak trees at the near end of the training grounds, scanning their leaves until his eyes caught hold of a familiarly colored shadow hidden among one of the tree’s branches. His feet moved of their own accord, pulling him toward its roots until he was standing in the oak’s shade.

Without thinking, Lon’qu tightened his grip on the fig in his right hand and sent it flying into the tree. The fruit made contact, a muffled voice cried out, and suddenly the branches were shifting, and Lon’qu could barely see straight.

But no matter what, no matter how many months or years would pass, no matter how the shadows played on her face, no matter how much his eyesight could possible wane, Lon’qu knew he would recognize her when he saw her—and he did.

Robin’s hood fell to her slender shoulders as a hand came up to rub at the place where the fig had stricken her, right before the crown of her head, and her eyes were wide as she stared at her husband from meters above him. She waited a beat and then cleared her throat and as eloquently as possible said, “Hello, Lon’qu,” but the tremble of her words had not escaped his earshot.

Lon’qu felt himself drop the remaining two figs to the ground, took a deep breath to steady himself, eventually tilted his head to meet her gaze. “Hi.”

His voice flowed thickly, and even from his distance away, he could see Robin’s eyes swimming with tears. He heard her sniffle and winced at the sudden stinging of his own eyes. He stepped closer to the tree, lifting his chin so that his voice would carry. “Why are _you_ crying?”

“I’m not,” Robin mumbled, wiping one of her cloak sleeves to her face, “it’s just…”

Lon’qu extended a hand to the bark of the tree and could almost feel her heartbeat coursing through it, along with his own resonating within him. “If you don’t get down from there right now, I’m going to come up and get you.”

At his words, Robin pushed aside the rest of the thin branches obscuring her from view, stood, and all without warning, leapt from the tree, half knocking her husband to the ground as she partially fell into him. He gasped, tumbling backward into the earth, his back slamming against the grass, and he could barely manage words as the apparently tactless woman grabbed onto his hands to help pull him to his feet.

“Did you think I was going to catch you?” Lon’qu breathed out in rasps.

“I had at least hoped you would try,” Robin said, attempting a smile. Silence rose after her words faded, and her features clouded and softened all at once as she took her first step in his direction and reached out for him, her arms looping beneath his.

It was much later when she whispered, “I’m sorry,” in a voice so quiet it was almost deafeningly so.

Lon’qu struggled to breathe but pulled her close, his hold around her painfully tight that had she been anyone else, he might have worried he would break her. But Robin was Robin, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if her bones were of titanium and steel, considering everything she had survived in her lifetime.

Robin said nothing about how the way he held her stole the air from her lungs and instead thought to herself, as she felt tears springing in her eyes again, that nothing had ever felt more comforting. She even found it in herself to smile at his next words.

“If you die out there,” he said, arms tight around her shoulders and face buried at her neck, “I’ll kill you. I swear it.”

Robin stilled in his hold; she had listened close enough to hear: _I love you_.

He pulled away then, the look in his eyes matching hers, almost swirling with tears and so dark and yet so bright at the same time. When he looked at her, he saw many things: flashes of their past together, his life as it had come to be since their first meeting, and all that followed after, but most of all, when he looked at her, he saw a future—their future, everything they could have and would have, together.

Her lips didn’t even have to form the words; when Robin lifted her hands to his shoulders, leaning up for him on tip-toe, Lon’qu knew, from the look in her eyes, the tenderness of her features, the warmth of her hands. He knew that she loved him, too.

And so he bowed his head, let his eyelids slip shut, and closed the distance.


End file.
